machines

Some realisations wait in the wings; quietly murmuring their lines until some mysterious stage hand points towards the lights. An aroused audience of one bristles as our player stumbles across the boards. Flowering at last, a bloom of gestures and revelatory dialogue which can tranquilize or incinerate with a pyroclastic fervour.

Its been quite some time since I’ve posted on this site. Sat down and tried to fulfil the promise and purpose of this little domain which I long ago intended to discuss the aspects of, and issues around, “my illness.” A nebulous term which draws its authority from a peculiar and potentially dangerous branch of pseudo-science. Considering bipolarity a disorder has never helped me. Lithium reigned me in, though I cannot say that there isn’t an alternative method for equalising my moods. To my great shame a vein of cowardice – or worse apathy – makes it unlikely that I’ll ever seek one out.

Epilepsy has given me a metric by which to measure the pathology of my psyche. Epilepsy is quantifiable. EEGs can demonstrate wiring faults as effectively as any halfway competent electrician. The MRI sketches poured over and waved triumphantly above the heads of psychopharmacologists appear to suffer from an a certain object impermanence. Traction subsides, and the diagnoses and treatment plans of every mental health professional I’ve ever encountered comes from defaulting to a sort of conventional wisdom; perhaps characterised by instincts which would be familiar to Witchfinders General.

The last 36 words aren’t necessarily dismissive. Perception is everything after all. If you treat bipolarity as an illness – if that helps keep you as healthy and happy as can be – then that is the reality as it applies to you. My experiences (within and without mental “illness”) have instilled a Ballardian appreciation of unreality and dominant fictions of the world around me. The recalibration of my mind and moods comes from repeat attempts to calculate and reconcile the contradictions and inverted logic of the suspicious and deliciously perverted “real”.

From here on in, my thoughts and attempts to make my way through this world, will hopefully hinge upon a more conscious appreciation of these dim repressions. The human body is a mechanical wonder driven by powerful and adaptive OSs. To drive the mechanism onwards, to maintain its inward integrity whilst engaging with competitive systems, requires flexibility and mutation. Consciousness, the imagination, the psyche: all crucial constructs which can neither function nor exist within fixated boundaries.

The query has become: how do I function? The query has become: why do I function? The query has become: how and why don’t we function the same?